Could Kickstarter be the future of future GURPS Hardbacks?

[the adventurer]

Watching OGRE blow up over on Kickstarter, its made me actively wonder if that sort of pre-order funding could be put to good use in funding new GURPS 4th HCs. Its no secret that the print line has slowly died out do to flagging sales industry wide. But with Kickstarter, the rules of how RPG books can be funded and distributed to their fans have completely changed.

Do you see that sort of crowd-funding as the future of print RPG material, and should Steve Jackson Games keep using it for future projects? Or should we just settle with a PDF dominated future (not that there's anything wrong with that)?

[Refplace]

Gets a lot of talk but at least this bypasses a big part of the editing issues.

[Dammann]

For my part, I actually prefer PDF supplements to hard cover. The way that e23 works, with a customer library and the freedom to download onto whatever device I own, is pretty much the perfect model of how to manage this sort of content, for my tastes. Given the choice, I will use an iPad or Kindle anytime in preference to a paper book.

That said, I prefer to loan print books. I would contribute to a Kickstarter to receive particular titles that I knew were going to be useful to my players. The reality for my group is that I own a vast library of GURPS releases, while two of seven players own Basic Set: Characters. One of those two players has been considering picking up Ultra Tech, but I doubt he will. I want hard copies for player use.

[Stone Dog]

I'd help Kickstart a Magic Revised.

[Dammann]

That would require a big authorial/ editorial effort, though. This discussed in this thread. I strongly sympathize with the desire for a particular book that doesn't yet exist. But as the thread I linked indicates, Kickstarter is good for getting money for a project where that is the missing element, while the missing element for a book like Magic Revised (or my own pet wish, GURPS Vehicle Design) is time from editors and (possibly specific) authors. No matter how much money is raised, SJG cannot buy another Jason Levine, Sean Punch, David Pulver, or Steve Jackson, S. John Ross and Daniel Thibault.

[pestigor]

I guess I wish there would have been a Kickstarter to get Gurps Horror in friggen color! That would have been sweet.

[Dammann]

See that seems like something that a GURPS Kickstarter could do. Maybe. I don't have GURPS Horrror; does it have b&w representations of color art?

[the adventurer]

Originally Posted by Dammann

See that seems like something that a GURPS Kickstarter could do. Maybe. I don't have GURPS Horrror; does it have b&w representations of color art?

No. They knew they were going to be stuck in black & white far enough in advance to commission their artwork to be intended to be printed in black and white. I actually like that it's in b&w it works with the theme. But I do wish the headers were in color.

[Lord Carnifex]

I've been searching the archives and I can't find a direct reference, but I believe that it has indeed been said that the illustrations for 4e Horror were commissioned in B&W, delivered in B&W and printed in B&W. They were intended all along to be black and white pieces and no color versions of them exist (unless some fan printed them out and colored them).

[Tomsdad]

I'd love kickstarter on Physical books, and then they could also sell them as PDF's to a wider audience.

I get by hard back, they get my sale and cover the development cost for a side by side pdf product as well. everyone's a winner.

My only issue would be shipping what various companies in this hobby want to charge for US to Europe shipping varies wildly